quasa

Super Selective Mastermix

quasa® is a piece of intellectual property owned by PrimerDesign. The invention is patent pending and is available under flexible licencing terms.

quasa® is a super selective mastermix that can increase the specificity of allele specific PCR upto 100-fold. This can transform the sensitivity of any allele specific PCR assay. Quantification of mutant variants in a back ground of wild-type template in a ratio of 1:1000 (0.1%) is simple with basic allele specific PCR (ARMS) and even greater sensitivity can be achieved with more advanced priming chemistries.

The invention

Mispriming during allele specific PCR is the number one limitation of the technique. The inventors of quasa have identified a class of compounds that when added to qPCR mastermix result in dramatically improved stringency during allele specific priming.

Standard qPCR MasterMix with quasa additive®. Mispriming occurs on wild type template at around cycle 46 (Light blue traces). Thus the window of specificity is around 25 Ct values. This represents >100 fold increase in specificity in the assay

Clinically tested

quasa® has been validated in a peer reviewed study centered around residual diseaes monitoring in Hairy Cell Leukemia (BRAF V600E). The lead clinician concluded the study by saying:

“We propose that molecular testing for BRAF-V600E by quasa® of peripheral blood extracted DNA should become the gold standard method for assessing treatment response and for relapse surveillance in HCL”